Hi all - I'm a new member to the site, and i was looking for any advice you care to give me on the best way to sell some rare wines.
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A friend of mine has a number of bottles in his private cellar (along with some cognacs), but he's not a collector, and he feels they are too rare to drink, therefore he is looking to sell them, but the problem is neither he or myself have any experience in how to go about this. The list of bottles is here: http://aethan.org/finewines/
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I know the value will be lower than normal, since they are currently held in a private cellar (therefore provenance automatically becomes questionable in terms of how they have been kept over the years etc).
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I would be keen to find out:
<p>1. If anyone has idea idea of value for any individual bottles
<br>2. If anyone has advice on the best route to sell these
<br>3. If anyone wants to make an offer on any of them, then I'm all ears!
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Really any hints/tips/info is very helpful at this stage. Even if it's just to say "auction" or "ebay" etc lol
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Thanks in advance!

Acquinn, How does a none collector come to having a cellar that looks like that? I wish I as as non-collector as he is

There are a number of auction houses that will take this lot no issues. (HDH - Hart David Hart in Chicago, Skinner in Boston, even KL wines in SF is trying to get into the business of doing this.). There are a lot of great wines abet in very small quantities. Look up their contact information online and then call them and ask them about inserting products into the next auction

So nice list and my guesses at auction prices which are generally much lower than retail prices.

1980 Château d'Yquem - Lur-Saluces, Sauternes $200-250
1948 Barsac - Chateau Doisy-védrinnes, J. Martial Lacroix : No idea..I've never ran across this.
1989 Petrus - Pomerol, Mme L.P. Lacoste-Loubat $2000 but depends on the auction...there could be people that love this and would pay more.
4x bottles of 1969 Château Mouton Rothschild: Not a great year so between $1300 to $1800 for the four but popular as birthday year wine.
1948 Taylors Vintage Port/Claret - bottled 1950: $400-$500, maybe more? Again birthday wine scenario could push it up.

Aquinn, I am a collector and lover of wine. Have your friend call me at (800)690-9463 ext 304. Id love to buy the Petrus, Yquem and the Mouton. I have someone who will buy the rest of your collection in NYC. He is espeecially in love with Cognac. Cheers, AA

The main problem here is the provenance. These are all some pretty heady bottles... the price spread low to high at retail are the D'Yquem is 1/2 bottle 195 and full 399, the Petrus is 2000 to 3950,. the Mouton 449-699, the Taylor 1000-1350 and the Tattinger 195-200. Again these are retail with full recourse. If your friend gets 33-55% of these prices he'll be lucky. WW

Sincere apologies for not responding until now; what with all the public holidays, royal weddings (here in the UK), and workload, it has been difficult to reply until now.
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Sincere thanks for your kind and helpful replies. It is all useful information to a novice such as myself at this stage.
Andrawes76 - i shall do my best to call you tomorrow. Again, apologies for not getting back to you until now.
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Best,
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Aquinn

It wasn't apparent from your first post that you are in the UK. You may want to contact Berry Brothers & Rudd in London to see if they have contacts locally for auction or resale. They have a website and this is how to contact them by e-mail http://www.bbr.com/contact-form?contact_form_name_F=orders&linkid=footer

theengineer - no disrespect but I just joined and while i would LOVE to have cellar like that one day, I am by far a "collector". people like myself just love it! its just the feeling you get when you walk into your own cellar. i hope its people like you that can help me find specific brands without feeling like an idiot. i collect one brand of wine and that is it and the only way i have collected the one over the past 10 years has been by traveling and walking into a wine shops. however lately, the wine brand is getting harder and harder to find b/c to be honest the taste sucks, i just love marilyn b/c my stepdad did. its just a way i connect to him and love it when people come into my kitchen and see her wines displayed. you seem to know a lot, are there actions in NC??? i guess that will become my next way of finding my favorite collection vs. the fun old fashion way.

Schoog, first of all, welcome to the board! Great to get people who are new and interested in wine here. WE all come about this topic a different way and yours is very interesting!

Trust me, no worries from me here! We've all got our right ot like what we like and to have an opinion on that.

My comments on his collection are rather complementary as that is no small feat to pull a cellar like that together (very expensive and hard to get wines) but frankly people who have those wines are generally quite knowledgeabe about them too.

BTW, while I don't know of any auctions in NC (and we have a few forumites from NC here), you can get on live online auctions from companies such as Hart Davis Hart, KL wines (abet a slightly different format) etc,..so you won't need to go.

Schoog. Not knocking your choice of wines to focus on but if you're really sincere about collecting wine then it's imperative you expand your horizons. You made the observation, quite correctly I may add, that the Marilyn is getting harder to find because the taste " Sucks ". Most of the true wine collectors buy wine for the enjoyment of drinking the juice. Hopefully you'll try some thst gives you the pleasure the grape has projected for lo these meeny, meeny yaears. WW